The side event will focus on work over the last 5 years in the Sahel region with CILSS and on the achievements of the Italian funded Special Initiative for Africa project in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal. It will explore the capacity needs and responses and the challenges facing West Africa in addressing DLDD. The side event will make strong linkages with the future “West Africa – Promoting Sustainable Land Management in migration-prone areas through innovative financing mechanisms” project funded by Italy and linking the Global Mechanism and IOM. The completed project and the new approach look at innovative financing solutions to address SLM scale up. ​